What Would You Do If Amazon Comes to Town?

Will you be prepared if Amazon chooses your city for HQ2?

Today, I want to pose one of the great What-If scenarios of 2018. Something that all realtors should be thinking about and considering how best to get ready for it if it comes to fruition. What would you do if Amazon announced they were coming to your city?

As many of you know, Amazon is opening a second headquarters. With the first set in Seattle, the second one will be selected somewhere across the country. Where exactly we’re not quite sure yet, but they’ve narrowed it down to 20 final candidate cities. These cities have been pitching different reasons and packages and benefits of why Amazon should come there.

There’s several top contenders, including Austin and Denver, as well as my area around Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia region. But, while we wait to find out where it’s gonna land. My question to you is, would you be ready?

New People, New Jobs, New Buyers

There’s a couple different elements to consider with this potentiality. But most important one is also the most obvious: there’s gonna be a whole lot of new people moving to the area! The new headquarters is projected to employ upwards of 50,000 people. That’s larger than many, many towns. And that’s only whom Amazon would employ; the sum total of new jobs created could ultimately end up at a hundred thousands potentially. Now, that’s a lot of new buyers looking for homes! And in light of the current low inventory, this is bound to put enormous pressure on market.

Pitching to Corporations

Another thing to consider is how to pitch yourself to corporations. You’re going to want to try and reach out to HR contacts within the company, and pitch them the benefits that you can offer their employees. I’ve managed relocations for companies before and worked with recruiters, and some of the benefits we’ve offered include taking their recruits out and giving them tours of the area, really trying to sell them on the area’s benefits.

Targeting Inventory

You’ll also want to zero in on the inventory that might interest the typical Amazon workers. Compared with a lot of companies, Amazon has a much more Millennial-based workforce. A lot of younger people, but many of whom are at the same time on the cusp of . So you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got access to inventory and listings that will attract those type of buyers. Typically, this target market is going to desire places in a more urban setting, next to public transportation, easy to commute to and from, with places to work and play, and attractive.

Your Current Buyers & Sellers

You’re also going to need to focus on your current clients, both sellers and buyers – each of which will require drastically different approaches.

For your sellers, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re doing marketing to Amazon employees and to the company. Timing for them is key, in that you may want to encourage them to wait a little bit for the value to potentially rise, and possibly rent it out in the meantime.

For your buyers it’s the opposite. You’re gonna want to focus on helping them find inventory fast, before the rush of potential employees inevitably drives up prices and drives down inventory. If people are sitting on the fence on homes or waiting to pull a trigger, this might be the thing that puts them over the edge.

HyperFast Strategies

In “The HyperLocal HyperFast Real Estate Agent,” I talk about the importance of dominating an area, and a lot of people think of this in terms of just geography. But that is not necessarily the case. You can dominate a certain company. You can dominate a certain industry. You can dominate a certain type of workforce.

Amazon coming might be the entryway into finding your niche and take your business to the next level!